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TAKE Solutions is a mid-cap, listed software company with a unique business model. It started as a supply chain management software company, almost 18 years ago, in Chennai and now “delivers domain-intensive services in Life Sciences,” offering its clients clinical, regulatory and safety services, from clinical trials to...

Must Read

My father expired on 28 November 2016. He was a government servant and retired as a Joint Commissioner, Income Tax. As I come to terms with his loss, I feel like sharing the knowledge that I acquired regarding the processes involved in the paperwork post his death. I have worked in the private sector all my life, and to learn aspects of......

SBI has introduced a Home Loan scheme 'SBI FlexiPay Home Loan', where the borrower has the option to pay the interest component in the first few years. This increases the loan eligibility by upto 20% as compared to the standard plan. Borrowers under this scheme have the the option of paying only interest during the moratorium......

Reviews

Recently, in September 2018, Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) launched a new pension policy named ‘Jeevan Shanti’ and it has been gaining popularity ever since. Can it deliver on the promises that are mentioned on the illustrations that have been floating around? Or is it just another case of mis-selling akin to......

Manappuram Finance, a non-banking finance company (NBFC) mainly known for providing personal loans against gold or gold jewellery, has come out with an issue of secured non-convertible debentures (NCDs) offering up to 10.40% interest per annum.
Thrissur-based Manappuram Finance is one of India’s......

Handbook

A complete online guide for our premium subscriber every aspect of personal finance -- from annuities and bank accounts to Wills and zero-coupon bonds - all in the form of common questions and answers

Financial products are complex. They demand effort, time and interest. With this handbook, life is much easier. Whenever you are in doubt, all you need to do is to refer to it for factual and unbiased information. No need to wonder, no need to ask. The first section, Manage Your Money, makes you aware of all the financial products. The second section, Your Moneylife, explains how to handle money-related issues in real life situations and through different life stages.

Tools

Invest

RECOMMENDATIONS

Recommendations

Recommended Fixed Income Products

To invest smartly, you need to mix fixed income (for safety) and equity schemes (for growth). Bank deposits are by far the most popular form of fixed income products. But there are other equally good options too. If you are a premium member, check our recommendations on:

Timing

Study after study has shown that returns from any market-linked product depends very significantly when they are bought. If you buy them high, you make less returns, or even losses. If you buy when they are low, you increase increase your chances of getting higher returns. Take a look

Low Valuation, High Returns if the starting PE is high , subsequent returns are usually low.
Conversely if the starting PE is low subsequent returns are high

Investools

The Concept

Investools allocate your savings into different assets depending on market valuation. It helps you to decide all the three issues that faces an investor:

1. What to invest in: Product selection.
There are hundreds of investment products. Which are ones where you should put your money at a particular time? The tool will advise you.

2. How much to invest in: Asset allocation.
It's not enough to know which are the right products. You need to know how much to invest in which products. This is will make the biggest difference to your investment outcome

3. When to invest: Market-timing:
While investing regularly in fixed income products is fine, investing the same amount regularly in market-linked products may not be the best strategy. With Investools, you can buy more when the market is down and less and when the market is up.

Only Stocks

Use this tool if you know for sure how much how would like to invest in stocks every month or even occasionally. This is not an asset allocation tool that will divide your savings into different products based on your risk profile and financial condition.

A premium subscription to Moneylife Smart Savers' entitles you to a Free Personal Accident insurance worth a sum insured of Rs2.5 lakh. If you are a premium member, you can download the free accident policy details here

Essentials

8 Factors for Choosing Health Insurance Plan

In order to offer you choices, insurers create complex products, making it tough for you to compare them and choose. Policies are different from each other in terms of exclusions, conditions and fine print. If you slip on even one of the vital conditions, your claim may be rejected or cut down. Get answers to these 6 questions.

Insurance Surrender tool (premium): If you have bought Child Plans, Pension Plans, ULIPs, Endowment,
Money-back and Whole-life policies, your returns will be poor. Worse, exiting is not easy.
You can Surrender, Go Paid-up or Continue. What should you do? If you surrender
where do you invest and what new insurance do you buy? What are the tax implications? Use this tool to get answers

Essentials

9 Factors for Choosing Insurance Plan

Life insurance is supposed to protect your loves ones if something happens to you. But that is not what the insurance companies sell aggressively. They wrap the protection in a variety of investment products, such as endowment plans, children's plans, pension plans and unit-linked insurance plans (ULIPs). These give you terrible returns, after all the costs and charges while the insurer and agents earn large fixed commissions. Here is what you should keep in mind before buying life insurance.

Ask

The Concept

The Concept

If you follow our recommendations you can stay out of problems of harmful financial products. But as a Premium Member, if you need direct one-on-one conversations with us, you can put your questions in the Ask us section. Your questions remain confidential.

Read Me First

While we welcome questions about your specific financial condition and our recommendations, there are some dos and don'ts. Please read this section first to know the kind of queries we will not be able to answer.